Another 31 Days, Another 31 Screams: Day 8 (The Dead Zone)

That fever for more cowbell is looking REALLY bad.

It's story time yet again. Time to go back to 2003, a year which would end up being a sort of lynchpin of inspiration for me. We have already discussed, in excessive detail, how watching old reruns of Sailor Moon made me want to be a writer. We have also discussed, less recently, about my sheer childhood terror of the works of Stephen King using the framework of his story of a nightmare clown from outside the universe. Here, at long last, is the intersection between the two. Sailor Moon made me want to be a writer. Becoming a Stephen King fan actually turned me into one, and The Dead Zone is where that started. This, I'll admit, is a bit of a reconstruction. In 2003 they made this into a TV series, and I happened to really like that show. This wasn't a story with supernatural terrors ready to eat your face. It had no fangs that scared me. It made me curious enough to pick up the book, and I went through it over the summer. Digging up the show would take too long and it's probably not aged well. As for reading the book, well, I'm covering a King book of somewhat more personal import to me for tomorrow's post. I'm a speed reader and all, but I can't read two novels that fast. Thus, we go to David Cronenberg's 1983 adaptation starring Christopher Walken. Fair enough! It has its changes, as an adaptation is want to do (and don't think the 2003 show didn't have a shitload of that going on), but the heart and soul of the novel is still there, and with a unique visual flair and atmosphere behind it.


A frigid tragedy. That's what Cronenberg's Dead Zone is. In a funny way, his film actually mirrors what drew me to the novel in the first place. We haven't covered any Cronenerg for these marathons because I haven't seen any besides this one, but from what I gather he trades in real fucked up body horror shit. There's not a glimpse of that in here. This tale is just a tragedy, of a man ripped away from a good life in a terrible accident, put in a coma for five years, and then burdened with the power of psychic premonition whenever he touches people or things with particular significance in their past or future. For all that people call Walken a giant Christmas ham, he really plays Johnny Smith great here. You feel for the poor guy. He deserved to be happy with his girlfriend, and now here he is, barely able to walk, left behind for five years,  and with all this psychic shit on top. Things only spiral further for him, but we'll get to that. The novel took place as a series of vignettes over a decade long span, and in many ways it's a book about Stephen King reflecting on the turbulence of the American 1970's. Cronenberg's film takes that structure and pares it down a bit, focusing on two or three of the major beats and giving each of them their own little section. You could almost edit this movie into a three-part miniseries... or at least it feels that way. More to the point, its outside shooting adds to the atmosphere. This movie is cold. There's snow all over the place in almost every scene, and it lingers. It gives me the same chilly vibes as Kubrick's take on The Shining, but as a dramatic tragedy with psychic powers instead of... well, whatever the holy hell the Kubrick take on The Shining is doing. They even shuffle plot points around to match with it; in the book Johnny tutors a high school kid and sees a vision of his graduating class dying in a fire at their grad party. In this movie, the kid is much younger and the vision of his death comes in the form of falling through thin ice during a hockey game. (Yes, Cronenberg is Canadian, why do you ask?) Point is, this is a movie that would fit just as well being watched in January during a blizzard as it does in a Halloween marathon. Oh, but there are horrors. A serial killer in the second act... and then Greg Stillson.


Oh Christ. Greg Stillson. A politician running for the US Senate, who a lot of people in the know don't trust, who has shady dealings behind the scenes and whom Johnny sees a vision of starting World War III due to his bluster and overconfidence? It's hard not to think of a certain elected official, and lest you think I'm reaching the author himself made a bunch of those comparisons a few years ago. What's wild is that, from what I remember, the book doesn't tell us what Johnny saw when he shook Stillson's hand until after it's all over and done with. "It", of course, being Johnny straight up trying to assassinate Stillson to prevent this terrible disaster... and getting shot and killed for it. Wild, huh, that this movie has been building us up to be sympathetic towards the tragedy of a would-be political assassin... but it does it, somehow. Johnny deserved better. Johnny saved the world, and nobody will really know it. Stillson survives the hit, but his reputation is tarnished and the day is saved. It's bittersweet, of course, as Johnny lays there in a town hall, dying of his gunshot wounds as his old flame holds his hand and confesses her love for him. That's the tragedy of it all, of course. Those two deserved better. It's quite the moving story, even if it has weird psychic powers... but that's the secret of King. He can tug at your heartstrings just as easily as he can scare the living fuck out of you... and he also has another secret. He can inspire you. He did it to me. The Dead Zone, while a great film, is just a gateway. Grab my hand and see the premonition of the future which awaits. The thing that, along with a magical girl show, made me the weird and wild writer I am today.


The Tower beckons.